Page 234 - Week 01 - Thursday, 14 February 2008
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could be justified as objectively proven child protection. The evidence from the stories is that only some of those children had good and fulfilling childhoods; others were slaves, doing domestic and other work in the homes of others and in the institutions which were supposedly caring for them. Beatings, rapes, fractured families and that loneliness and the amputation of separation were felt as an aching in the belly which never goes away, even for those who were lucky enough to locate their mothers before their mothers died—or the children, brothers, sisters, any remnant of precious family.
While “sorry” will not cure the broken hearts and the dislocation, it is a recognition that there is material reason for that pain—shifting it from the personal to the social and political, where it belongs. “Sorry” is bigger than that, though. When I say sorry, I think of the way that Aboriginal people have been ripped away not only from their families but also from their country—the country that we have been shown over and over again in the paintings that our art market prices so highly, country that can be traced on Aboriginal skins. Our forebears moved these people out of their country; our contemporary politicians and bureaucrats move them out again—from Redfern, for instance—right now. They are moved from the town camps to the outstations and back again.
While we set up a system for land rights, it is of little use to most Aboriginal communities. Even before it was drenched by the bucketloads of extinguishment of Wik, the politicians and lawyers made it necessary for peoples whose boundaries were fluid to claim exclusive ownership over their neighbours and co-tenants while proving a material connection of continuous habitation.
Thus the Yorta Yorta, whose land management principles could save the dying Barmah forests, were denied entitlement to their lands. To this point, the contribution that they and other Aboriginal peoples of the Murray-Darling Basin could make to the sustainable management of the rivers, wetlands and woodlands of the ailing basin has been rejected. Saying sorry has to mean sorry for stuffing up your country, for damaging it without asking for permission.
I believe that we must say sorry to Aboriginal people and rethink the intervention which treats Northern Territory Aboriginal people as second-class citizens. Just this week, many found that their vouchers—a system set up with the best of intentions to quarantine part of Centrelink allowances for food—could not be spent in Canberra’s Woolworths. They did not have any money, because they are not allowed to have it. What is this but a restriction on travel, a kind of mandatory detention?
There is a lot of work to do. Rudd’s government must now talk with Aboriginal people about the best ways to go forward together. We have lost ATSIC. What should replace it? Along with my Senate colleague Bob Brown and the Chief Minister, I believe that compensation is essential and that money should be set aside while its method of delivery is considered. Health, education, housing and employment—there is a lot to do and now we can get on with it.
I am proud to be part of a parliament that said sorry a decade ago. I am especially proud that Greens MLAs Lucy Horodny and Kerrie Tucker were the original instigators of the apology. They worked with Marian Reilly of the ALP to persuade an
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